Illinois students develop 'snow day' app

CRYSTAL LAKE, Ill. — Wish there was a way to predict when a "snow day" will occur?

Three northern Illinois teenagers have created a phone app that helps do just that and it's been getting some buzz.

Calvin Breseman, Tanishq Dubey and Gustavo Farias are seniors at Prairie Ridge High School in Crystal Lake. They created the Android-based Snow Day Calculator.

"Everybody loves a snow day, so we decided to come up with a formula that would predict it," Breseman told The (DeKalb) Daily Chronicle (http://bit.ly/1cBRWwp). "We came up with a preliminary idea for an algorithm and decided to make it into an app."

The cellphone application, or program, has been downloaded more than 1,000 times in a week nationwide — from Boston to Detroit and even Houston. It's been published by Boreas Applications. It works by analyzing information plugged in by users.

The app gives the user the chance of snow based on location.

"We haven't had any false positives," Breseman said. "We hope to add about 80 more cities in the U.S. before the end of break."

The app is free and the students said they hope to have an iPhone version available in the near future.